Had an interesting conversation with a friend the other day. We were talking about how she always recommended my blog to her friends, particularly those dealing with dementia and loss. But she recognized recently that was no longer the case.

The spiderworts must have heard all the blooming noise the bluebonnets made. They’ve decided to start coming up. They’re a nice springtime delicacy. Purple flower and yellow stamens.

I had a good weekend of manly work, mainly working on my heavy equipment. And by heavy, I mean my zero turn mower, which is heavy in the sense that I can’t really pick it up.

The swallows are returning. There are birds on two of the old nests on the front porch. I cleaned out all the nest sites in the garage and sprayed with peppermint oil. I can do without their mess in the garage. We’ll see if I succeed in deterring them.

Busy day in the gardens yesterday. Mainly buying with some planting. Went looking for Morning Glories found another vine instead. The name escapes me because it didn’t have a card in the pot.

I found myself standing along the shore of the Gulf of Mexico the other day. I was on the seawall in Galveston, I was reminiscing to myself about what a role it had played in my life, particularly while I was married, and that was a long while with three kids.

It’s the season of falling leaves. The big oaks are shedding, getting rid of their winter coat, and putting on new growth. Soon, there will be thousands of new leaves and oak tassels, and then the tassels will fall, staining the porch and the drive.

I confess to the onset of laziness. My alarm still goes off at six, but that’s about all it does. These days, I’m just as likely to turn it off and go back to sleep as I am to get up and get going.

I stomped my old grounds yesterday. I’m in Houston. My home for nearly fifty years. I love the freeways and the byways and the highways. The old streets and the new streets. The crowds. The traffic. The life it all represents.

Woke up to lightning and thunder, way off in the distance. Checked the weather radar and sure enough a storm may touch us. May. You know how weather goes.

Had a metaphysical experience in Big Bend last week. On our first day in the park, we were driving around looking at the sights. There were four of us in the truck. I saw a display sign, the sort they have all throughout the park, and asked to stop. The driver obliged.

Let’s call it the mystery of the green rocks. We spotted them all over Big Bend last week as we drove in and out of the park and walked it’s hills.

There were doubts. There were fears. There was the mind grappling with the incomprehensible. Could I walk a long and winding path of approximately 13 miles that rose into the sky 3,000 feet. I was unable to imagine what it would be like. Then I did it.

The cemetery in the ghost town of Terlingua is a haunted place.

Went on a walk yesterday in the hills of Big Bend. The landscape where we walked was all ancient ash and lava flows, sculpted over 40 million years by the wind and rain.

Made the long drive from home to the mountains of Big Bend yesterday. As we hurtled along Interstate 10, leaving Ozona heading toward Fort Stockton, we passed through many a road cut, deep dives if you care to look, at the millennia that have passed between then and now.

It’s cold this morning by Texas standards. The temperature is in the 40s. The sky is clear and there’s hardly a breeze.

Went shopping yesterday. Did self-checkout. Left behind a loaf of bread. No idea how I managed that.

Boy, when mother nature decides to prune trees, she goes all in. I went to help a friend in Wimberley clear fallen limbs from the recent ice storm. I worked about four hours around three or four trees. I kept my chain saw humming and filled a 16-ft trailer with four foot high sides with branches.

A big gust of wind woke me up last night. Maybe there was rain, too. The driveway is wet this morning. At any rate, I went back to sleep. Woke up at six. My new alarm time.